She loves them. She’s full of festive cheer. He’s brimming with Bah, Humbugs. Besides unreasonably seasonable names, the only thing Jonathan Frost and Gabriella Di Natale have in common is a healthy dose of mutual contempt. Well, that and the same place of employment at the city’s most beloved independent bookstore, Bailey’s Bookshop. But when the store’s owners confess its dire financial state, Jonathan and Gabby discover another unfortunate commonality: the imminent threat of unemployment.With the Baileys’ requests to minimize expenses, win new customers, and make record sales dancing in their heads, Jonathan and Gabby conclude—barring a financial Christmas miracle—one of them will soon be cut from the payroll. Neither are willing to step down from their position, so they strike a bargain: whoever has more sales in December gets to stay on in the new year; the loser will resign. With a lifetime's worth of festive tricks up her sleeve, Gabby should easily outsell her nemesis, except the unreadable Mr. Frost’s every move seems purely designed to throw her off her game.As if that wasn’t bad enough, Gabby's deceptive ex won't quit pursuing her, and her anonymous online friend suggests they take a break. Worst of all, as the pressure mounts to save the bookshop and her job, Gabby meets a new, tender side of Jonathan. Is this the same man she's called her cold-hearted enemy?Maybe he’s got a motive she just can’t figure out—or maybe Jonathan Frost isn’t as chilly as she once thought. Maybe Jonathan and Gabby already know—and love—each other in ways they never thought possible.This is an #OwnVoices story for its portrayal of autism by an autistic author.

    Penny Lassiter has a comfortable holiday routine with her family and friends--until her husband gets laid off from work and seemingly undergoes a personality transplant. When he comes home with a travel atlas and the keys to a borrowed RV, he turns her cookie-cutter Christmas plans into perfect chaos. She has no choice but to buckle herself and the kids in for a crazy cross-country ride that defies all of her expectations and redefines her priorities in a way she has never imagined. SHORT EXCERPT: "I gritted my teeth and shifted the cardboard box against the spindly pull-down attic ladder. Whoever invented these contraptions obviously hadn’t considered that people would be going up and down the narrow steps with their arms full. Of course, I could be transferring my aggravation to some nameless inventor instead of placing the blame where it belonged—squarely on the shoulders of my beloved husband and his recent mysterious attitude. “The—” I pressed the side of my face against the cardboard, clutching my burden tightly, in spite of the dust particles crawling up my nose. “—very—” I lowered one foot, tapping air until I found the next step. It would be a disaster to fall with this box. “—idea!” I jumped off the last step and landed with a thud, gripping my priceless cargo. For sixteen years, Thanksgiving afternoon at the Lassiters had meant one thing—putting up the Christmas tree.I set the old box carefully on the hardwood floor in the den and stared at the words I’d written the year Phillip and I had married—Fragile: Christmas Ornaments. On the corner of the box, where I always denoted our storage containers as Summer or Winter or Open When Amanda Turns Ten, I had printed Thanksgiving Day. Even then, at the ripe old age of twenty, I never left anything to chance. Spell it out. No beating around the bush. No doubt about it, today was the day.So why had my husband, who loved Christmas as much as I did, announced cryptically at breakfast that instead of putting up the tree this afternoon he had something else planned? Granted, he’d been acting strange for at least a week, but his proclamation had thrown my whole day off kilter. And then, he’d driven off after lunch to take his parents home without another word about it."

    This takes place four years before the events of These Violent Delights, so there are no spoilers.“The year was 1922, and nothing was impossible.”

    Two strangers.Noah is a hopeless romantic. He’s heading back home for one last chance with his first love, whom he broke up with when he went off to college.Ammy doesn’t believe in true love—her parents being prime examples. She’s escaping from a mom who can’t take care of her to a dad who may not even want her. That is, until one winter night when Noah and Ammy find themselves in the same Amtrak car heading to Upstate New York.After a train-wreck first encounter between the two of them, the Amtrak train suddenly breaks down due to a snowstorm. Desperate to make it to their destinations, Noah and Ammy have no other option but to travel together. What starts off as a minor detour turns into the whirlwind journey of a lifetime, and over the course of the night they fall in love. But come morning their adventure takes an unexpected turn for the worst. Can one night can really change how they feel about love...and the course of their lives forever?

    The kids at school sense something different about him. And they’re right.Hunter has powers that have nothing to do with how hard he can throw a punch.Maybe that’s what Clare Kasten is picking up. She’s shy, quiet, and intense, but she’s sought him out. There’s no telling what she wants from him.But Hunter knows enough to sense a secret when it’s close. And getting close to Clare is a danger he’s ready to face…

    Family hides in underground. Boy narrator grows up, falls in love with another boy.

    His complete opposite in every way, Kelsey’s the girl he never allowed himself to want. But when she agrees to stay with him until the storm passes, he definitely finds himself wanting the gorgeous, tattooed woman. Too bad Nate’s sure his brother is still in love with her…Kelsey had only meant to drive through her tiny hometown, not end up spending time there. With a cop. But despite her issues with authority figures, even she can admit Mr. Serious looks pretty hot in his uniform. Unfortunately, she’s sworn off relationships—and she’ll never be the girl for a nice guy.

    Fate intervenes in the form of Grant Johnson, a boy she grew up with, who catches the same flight while returning home from a business trip.When a malfunction sends their plane crashing down on the runway upon takeoff, Jamie and Grant decide to rent a car and make the nine-hundred-mile drive home together. Ironically for them, anything that can go wrong does as they face one hysterical hurdle after another.Christmas may finally bring Jamie the gift of love she has always wanted if she and Grant can manage to overcome a few obstacles along the way. Ho-ho-ho!

    He dresses like it's Casual Friday every day of the week.2. Everyone loves him, even though I'm pretty sure he doesn't actually get any work done. It's the smile, I think. Definitely the laugh.3. He's so relaxed, sometimes I can't even tell if he's awake. Or conscious.4. He doesn't respect my office space boundaries. Stay in your own office and stop messing with my stuff!Okay, the list is actually really long, but none of it matters because it's time for the annual Secret Santa exchange, and guess whose name I draw.Hunter freaking HollidayAnd he knows this because, I repeat, he won't stay out of my office and leave my things alone.Even though I didn't ask, he has no problem telling me exactly what he wants.Me. For one nightThe Holiday Hookup is an MM Christmas short story with high heat and low angst.

    Diamonds. Mistletoe. And a one-on-one holiday assignment with a very sexy boss. Put it all together, and it's enough to ruin a girl's day.Angie Miller has to write sizzling, evocative, heart-melting holiday stories about love, romance and diamonds for her company's newest client…an assignment that isn't so easy when she's just had her heart broken. When her first not-so-cheery story nearly gets her company fired, her boss Kyle Black makes it his personal mission to get Angie in the right mood to wax poetic about love and romance. The fact that there's three years' worth of unrequited sexual tension simmering between them? It just makes it all the more interesting when Kyle shows up in her office with his oh-so-broad shoulders, smoldering smile and…oh, yeah… his slightly autocratic ways… How is Angie supposed to find her muse again when Kyle keeps trying to have his way with her? Not "that" kind of way, but a girl can dream…*Author's Note: Jingle This! is a short novel that was originally published 2004 in mass market paperback by Dorchester Publishing as part of the holiday anthology Shop 'til Yule Drop. It has been substantially revised and expanded. It is approximately 180 pages in length.

    But the darkly handsome Mr. Edward Sharpe is no run-of-the-mill London merchant. He’s grim and silent. A man of little emotion—or perhaps no emotion at all. After two months of courtship, she’s ready to put an end to things. A Last Chance for Love But severing ties with her taciturn suitor isn’t as straightforward as Sophie envisioned. Her parents are outraged. And then there’s Charles Darwin, Prince Albert, and that dratted gaslight. What’s a girl to do except invite Mr. Sharpe to Appersett House for Christmas and give him one last chance to win her? Only this time there’ll be no false formality. This time they’ll get to know each other for who they really are.

    Ancrum's The Legend of the Golden Raven novella, part fairy tale and part gritty reality, follows a boy as he descends into madness. August and Jack weren’t meant to be friends. One is a misfit with a pyro streak and the other a golden boy on the rugby team. But as their relationship intensifies, Jack slowly begins to lose his mind—taking readers on an intimate journey into the fantasy kingdom creeping into the edges of his world.As the novella moves back and forth between a medieval legend and our own, contemporary world, nothing is as it seems. The boys alienate everyone around them as they struggle with their sanity and as Jack’s quest to fulfill a dark prophecy begins to consume them both . . . Devour this companion novella to The Wicker King. An ImprintBook

    But when Chloe tricks him into wearing a hideous waistcoat—complete with sequins, pompoms, and jingle bells—to her family’s Christmas Eve party, she may have gone too far. Her penalty? A single, scorching kiss—and a Christmas gift she never expected.Love.

    What he does love is sports, the thrill of a competition and the mysterious identity of the woman he’s been flirting with on the company messanger… Meg McClane loves everything about Christmas, from her festive Ugly Sweaters, down to her candy-cane striped toenails. But not everyone appreciates her holiday cheer; not her co-workers, not her bosses, and certainly not Adam Roberts—especially the night they get stranded in the elevators on their way to the company Christmas party…

    She's had her fair share of boyfriends, and she's learned all there is to learn from her mother, who's currently working on husband number five. So why is it that's Remy can't seem to dump Dexter? It can't be his name. It can't be that he's messy and disorganized. And it certainly isn't that he's a musician - just like Remy's father, a man she never knew because he left before she was born. Could it be that Remy's romantic rules to live by don't apply anymore?